Town Planning in Ancient India c16.15

c16.15

The predominantly religious nature of the Hindu life and culture also inspired and manifested itself in the Hindu civic architecture in the shape of a large number of Aryan and non-Aryan gods and their magnificent edifices which were distributed throughout the city. Every street of note, every building zone or every district of the town was sanctified by these religio-communal centres where the patron deities were installed radiating bliss and brightening their jurisdictions with a halo of holiness. Thus we read in the description of Vijayanagara by the Portuguese traveller, Domingo Pæs:—“There are temples in every street, for these appertain to institutions like the confraternities, you know of in our parts, of all craftsmen and merchants; but the principal and greatest pagodas are outside the city.” All the expenses of worshipping the deities and the upkeep of their edifices were met by local subscriptions and these communal traditions of public worship of gods are kept up to this day in every Indian city and village.